Love is always the answer, isn't it?

Running through my neighborhood is one of my favorite places to ponder. It struck me, as I was running the other day, that after deeply thinking through whatever situation happens to be running through my mind on any particular day, if I think it through all the way, the conclusion I seem to always come to is... love. Putting love above everything else... it's always the answer.

Today, after sharing a meal together, our fellowship group moved outside to the deck to continue our discussion. I love this group that often meets here on Sundays. There is no agenda, except to get together for meaningful conversation. We just take turns bringing up topics to discuss, never knowing where the conversation will take us. One of the things I love about this group is that we respect one another and are not about forcing our opinions on each other. There is no pressure to hide or perform because everyone is loved and accepted just as they are. It's a safe place where everyone is free to take off their masks and be real. When we come together, we leave judgement at the door and put on love which allows us to honestly sort through our journeys together. It's less about coming to agreements and dogmatic conclusions and more about moving in a direction toward Him who is Love.

Todays topic came from 1 Cor. 1:10 where Paul was pleading with the christians to not be divided, but to be perfectly united in mind and thought. I used to read that scripture and think that if everyone would just read the bible and agree with what it said (or agree with what I thought it said), we'd all be united. As I got older, I realized that there were many sincere, spiritual, learned people that read the scriptures and came to some very different conclusions. The way I read that scripture caused more disunity than unity. In fact, it's one of the reasons we have so many denominations. (If you don't agree with me, you're not a christian!) Since all truth is only found in Christ and the rest of us can only see but a poor reflection of it, it seems to me that Paul wasn't calling us to line up all our beliefs with each other, but rather to bear with one another in love as we move in the direction of Christ, following Him to the best of our ability. 

Unity is to be based more upon showing love and grace toward one another than upon agreeing with one another. Philippians 3 talks about forgetting what is behind and pressing forward...  It says, "And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we've already attained." Romans 14:1-23 is a beautiful illustration of this grace that we are to extend toward one another; "One person's faith allows him to eat meat, another's doesn't... One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike... Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another." Let us be for one another instead of against one another, connecting with each other in our weakness and loving each other toward fullness.

If we were really to put love above everything else; above doctrine, above the way we live, above being right, above our pride, above our fear... we would find unity. Love is what bridges the gap. It bridges the gap between us and God and between us and another. It's the way christians are called to bridge the gap between God and others (Jn 13:34) because love is the way to healing, wholeness, and transformation. Jesus showed us the way, the narrow path. Love is the answer to everything.

We heard back from Kenya

I just received an email from Wayne Jacobson, our pipeline person who connects us with Michael, the man who runs the orphanage in Kenya. Along with the mats, I sent a letter telling Michael that my friend, Eddie, who works in the hospital, is collecting them for us. I asked him to let me know if they helped solve the bedwetting problem and if so, to let me know how many more they needed at this time. 

The mats are free, but the shipping is certainly not. I wanted to make sure they worked before I sent more. Apparently, these mats are doing the trick. Praise God! Below I copied and pasted the email Michael sent through Wayne.

Dear Brother Wayne,

Greeting once more in Jesus Name, thank you very much , yesterday we received the mat it was send with brother whom you recommended him, and he works in Hospital, they are ten in number and he wanted to know how many were required in the center. So we still need twenty of them. You can send our appreciation as below:

 

Dear brother in the lord, on behalf of the Living Loved Christ Hope children care center, we want to send our appreciation for your generous and compassion heart towards this center of orphans, and these mat would be a great blessing because we do waste a lot of blanket after six months because of being wet by children urine. So we tried and saw these will make the blanket and mattress to last longest may the lord bless you, we still need twenty of them.

May the lord bless you as you stand with us.

Yours

 Brother Michael 

Reply to:

A note from my precious daughter-in-law

Hey Mom!
I don't know if I told you but I'm sure you know Ty's been on this vegetarian kick and I'm going to try to do it with him, so we got all the leftover meat in the house and made sack lunches and water bottles to hand out to the homeless. It was just the saddest thing, but it got me thinking that I would really love to start doing that maybe once a month. It would be a really neat thing if we could get a little group together each month to do it with us. It just really opened up my eyes to how much the little things just don't matter at the end of the day. Ty and I have food,water,shelter and more love surrounding us than most have their entire lives! 

What is love???

What is Love?

Love is God.

Who is God?

God is Love.

So is Love a noun???


Love is the very essence of who God is.

If 1 Cor. 13 is a description of Love, is it a description of God?

So is love an adjective???


Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

We were created to live in His love and express that love to one another.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.

For God so valued the world, that He gave His only begotten son.

For God so cared for the world, that He gave His only begotten son.

So is love a verb???

Words of wisdom from Rabbi Allen...

People are looking in the wrong places. God is the still small voice within. God is the voice of compassion, the light of love, the expression of kindness, the seeking of peace, the humility in one's soul. God is found at the edge of suffering, in the presence of purpose, in the loss of fear, in the endless quest for goodness, in the expression of caring, in the presence of healing, in the longing for wholeness, in the discovery of oneself. God is present in the endless striving for what is right and what is just, and in the search for truth. God is alive in a baby's cry, a person's laugh, and in the never-ending life force igniting the road ahead. May God's presence be manifest in all of us.

Love isn't a concept to know, but a reality to live in...

Compassion - Empathy for the suffering of others, feeling what they feel, a concern for others pain.
Love - A whole hearted concern for someone's ultimate good, even at a great personal cost.
The woman in the story below beautifully reflects the heart of our rescuer, Jesus.

The truly inspiring story of the Chinese rubbish collector who saved and raised THIRTY babies abandoned at the roadside

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 08:27 EST, 30 July 2012 | UPDATED: 17:28 EST, 30 July 2012

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Lou Xiaoying has been praised in China for saving more than 30 abandoned babies over the years

A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged.

Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned Chinese babies from the streets of Jinhua, in the eastern Zhejiang province where she managed to make a living by recycling rubbish.

She and her late husband Li Zin, who died 17 years ago, kept four of the children and passed the others onto friends and family to start new lives.

Her youngest son Zhang Qilin - now aged just seven - was found in a dustbin by Lou when she was 82.

'Even though I was already getting old I could not simply ignore the baby and leave him to die in the trash. He looked so sweet and so needy. I had to take him home with me,' she said.

'I took him back to our home, which is a very small modest house in the countryside and nursed him to health. He is now a thriving little boy, who is happy and healthy.

'My older children all help look after Zhang Qilin, he is very special to all of us. I named him after the Chinese word for rare and precious.

'The whole thing started when I found the first baby, a little girl back in 1972 when I was out collecting rubbish. She was just lying amongst the junk on the street, abandoned. She would have died had we not rescued her and taken her in.

'Watching her grow and become stronger gave us such happiness and I realised I had a real love of caring for children.

'I realised if we had strength enough to collect garbage how could we not recycle something as important as human lives,' she explained.

'These children need love and care. They are all precious human lives. I do not understand how people can leave such a vulnerable baby on the streets.

Lou is now dying from kidney failure. She is pictured here with two of the children she helped rescued

Lou, left, caring her the babies with her husband Li Zin. She would give them to friends and family after she rescued them

Lou, who has one biological daughter, Zhang Caiying and now aged 49, devoted her life to looking after the abandoned babies.

Word of her kind-hearted gestures has now spread in China, where thousands of babies are abandoned on the streets by their poverty stricken parents.

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One fan explained: 'She is shaming to governments, schools and people who stand by and do nothing. She has no money or power but she saved children from death or worse.'

'In the local community she is well known and well respected for her work with the abandoned babies. She does her best. She is a local hero. But unfortunately there are far too many abandoned babies in China who have no hope of survival.

Only last week there was news of a baby lucky to be alive after having its throat cut and then put in a plastic bag and thrown in a dustbin at Anshan city, in northeast China’s Liaoning province.

The baby – a girl – was thought to be a victim of the country's one child policy where parents restricted to only having a single child prefer boys and girls are unwanted and often discarded.

Lou, who is now in hospital, has become iconic in her village and people have said she puts the government and other officials to shame

A little boy who was found abandoned by Lou is now cared for by her older children. The family have little money but still managed to save dozens of children

Lou made a living from collecting and recycling rubbish, she said that she would never leave the children after coming across them, abandoned

Infanticide of 'guilt children' is still a problem in rural areas but it is rare in cities, where children are usually abandoned but not killed. 

The baby's fate has horrified China. The tot was spotted when a passerby went to throw some rubbish in the bin the and saw what he thought was a dead baby in the bag.

He told police that the child was purple and had not moved until he examined the bag more closely.

A resident who witnessed the girl being taken to hospital said: 'She was still breathing and had a heartbeat. Blood from the wound stained the whole body.'

Doctors said that if the baby had been left in the bag a few minutes longer she would have died of suffocation and it had already been affected by the lack of oxygen hence the purple colour.

They said that the baby had been born premature and was probably between 32 and 34 weeks old and weighing just 1.4 kg.

A medic said that if the cut had been just a millimetre deep in the baby would have died.

The premature baby was found in a bin, with placenta and umbilical cord still attached, in Anshan city in northeast China

PREVENTING MORE THAN 400 MILLION BIRTHS WITH CONTROVERSIAL RULE

The painted sign reads, 'It is forbidden to discriminate against, mistreat or abandon baby girls'

China's controversial 'policy of birth planning' was introduced in 1978 to reduce the strain on the country's burgeoning population and reduce the strain on resources.

It officially restricts married, urban couples to having one child and those who break the rules have to pay a fine or fee.

Those who stick to the rules are usually awarded a certificate and can benefit financially, such as receiving an additional month's salary every year until the child turns 14.

The policy allows exemptions in some cases - including rural couples, couples without siblings on either side, and ethnic minorities. 

Residents of Hong Kong and Macau are exempt from the policy, as are foreign nationals living in China.

Certain rural parts of the country allow couples to have a second child if the first born is a girl but many parents feel pressured to produce an heir and end up abandoning the females. 

If the second child is also a girl, no more children are allowed. It is extremely rare to find a family that has two sons. 

The Chinese government claims that the policy has probably prevented more than 400 million births and in 2010 it was reported that for every 120 boys born there are 100 girls.

Critics inside China and around the world have condemned the policy and accused the government of enforcing abortions.

Despite the fact that it is illegal to kill newborn babies in the country, female infanticide and the failure to report female births is widely suspected, especially in rural areas.

An international conference on human rights, held ten years before the policy was introduced, proclaimed: 'Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children.'

Despite this, an independent 2008 survey reported that 76 per cent of the Chinese population supported the policy.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181017/Lou-Xiaoying-Story-Chinese-woman-saved-30-abandoned-babies-dumped-street-trash.html#ixzz243D3eh99

The Happiness Project

Keith and I were watching a show on PBS the other night. A man named Shawn Achor who spent a good portion of his life trying to understand what makes people happy was talking about the key to happiness. He teaches the most popular class at Harvard where he lectures on positive psychology. He says that a lot of people think that they will be happy when... I get my health back, I get married, I lose 20 lbs, I get rich, I get cosmetic surgery, and the list goes on. Are all pretty people happy? Are all rich people happy?... This guy believes that 10% of what makes people happy comes from the outside, but the other 90% comes from the inside. He says that it's the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. If you can change the lens, you can change your happiness.

It's interesting when science catches up with God. God tells us that the eye is the lamp of the body, if your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  How do we perceive things? Do we look with eyes of compassion or eyes of judgement? What do we focus on? Is it that one negative thing going on in our life, or all the countless blessings? God says to continually give thanks in all circumstances (not for all circumstances, but in all circumstances) Do we look for the good that can come out of things? God also encourages us to think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Is our Father teaching us how we can be happy in a broken world? Did our Creator design our brains with the ability to protect ourselves against all the negativity around us?

Shawn teaches his students that the first step towards happiness is to stop equating future success with happiness. He says you have to train your brain to be positive just like you have to workout your body.  Research shows that if you do something for 21 days in a row it actually changes your brain chemistry and will create a new habit. So he challenges you to pick 1 out of 5 researched habits and try it out for 21 days in a row to create a positive habit. Keith and I decided to put his theory to the test. The habit we chose to try was to name 3 things we were thankful for every day for the next 21 days.

The next morning at breakfast, I told my girls Ellie (10) and Emma (6) that we were going to try an experiment. For the next 21 days we were going to play a thankful game. I told them the rule was to choose 3 different things every day that they were thankful for. Emma knocked out 3 things right away. I'm thankful for my family, my food, and my home because a lot of kids in the world don't have those things. (Remember, Emma was adopted 3 1/2 years ago and came from a very deprived orphanage). Ellie looked around the room and said, "Uh, I'm thankful for this table, the tv, and uh, the dog." So I decided that we'd also say why we were thankful for each thing to make sure we were truly being thoughtful and sincere about our choices.

After about a week of doing this, I noticed that something was actually changing in me. Some of the difficult circumstances that were going on in our life hadn't changed, but they didn't seem to bother me so much. In fact, a few other stressful and unpleasant things were added to the mix. Today, for instance,  our A/C broke (and it's right in the middle of August). After the A/C guy left, we noticed the hardwood floors in our kitchen starting to buckle. It looks like a pipe from the sink is leaking underneath our hardwood floors.  Every time something negative happens,  I find myself looking for the good in it, even finding humor in it. I notice that throughout the day Keith, the girls and I keep sharing extra things we were thankful for. We were drawn to the positive like a magnet.

So I decided to invite the boys in on it. I made a chart and hung it on the refrigerator for whoever wanted to join in. I labeled it, "The Happiness Project." Everyday, after we tell someone the 3 things we're thankful for,  we put a check by our name. We've found value in not just saying the 3 things to ourselves, but in sharing them with each other. That way, instead of just thinking about the 3 things we're thankful for, we're encouraging others as well as being encouraged. When someone says they're thankful for something, someone always seems to say, "Oh yeah, me too." We're drawing attention to and reminding each other of all that is wonderful in this world. I'll end this post with a link to Louis Armstrong's, What a Wonderful World. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT69i1lU
 (Just highlight it, then right click it, then click "go to address")